[Mike_Cirba]

This morning I played Bristol Harbour in Canandaigua, NY, designed by RTJ Sr. and son Rees in 1972.

Built on a rugged piece of land overlooking one of the Finger Lakes, my reaction to the course surprised me.

Much like one finds some degree of comfort in seeing the same Macdonald/Raynor/Banks holes in various settings, I felt oddly excited to see what is suddenly passing for anachronistic architecture as we head into the 2000s.

The course featured everything one comes to expect from Papa Jones.  It had long, landing strip tees.  It had elevated greens that mostly demanded full carries.   It had clover-leaf shaped bunkering, which seemed to blend well with the site.  It featured a number of heroic holes where the bold player could try to carry a hazard, particularly on approaches to par fives.   The greens themselves seemed a bit smaller, and more sophisticated than what we often give Jones credit for, where our stereotypical idea is one of a huge, multi-tiered green...these had much more in the way of variety of shaping and size than that simplistic notion.   The course was generally narrow, and demanding from the back tees, yet I was also surprised to see how much forgiveness existed generally, especially on approach shots.   In many cases a really poor approach would not be dead, but would instead merely require a fantastic chip or pitch to save par.

I was also quite impressed with the routing, which was generally masterful given some pretty tough terrain.  After some back and forth on the first couple of holes, the rest of the course really attacked the slopes in some bold and creative ways.  

It was also interesting to note that a few holes did seem to have a sense of humor, a characteristic that Jones is rarely given credit for.   Certainly, the 14th, with an approach dropping over 90 feet to a green backed by "frowning" bunkers curled around the back was ample evidence, as was the lack of any bunkers on the 17th, which was just as daring and challenging a hole as anyone might find from one of the modern day masters.

Also, I couldn't help but note that almost all of my favorite "Rees" courses are from this time period.  Whether Arcadian Shores in SC, or Montauk Downs, or the now defunct Eagle Lodge in PA, I find myself seeing some really good stuff and wondering why he didn't build more of those type of courses over the past 30 odd years.

One last thought...it seemed to me that the "Jones style" fit in well on terrain with good movement, especially from an aesthetic standpoint.   I'm not sure why that is, but it struck me that I had the same feeling today playing Bristol Harbour than I did playing my favorite RTJ Sr. course, Dunes Club in Myrtle Beach.   The course just seemed to fit the land and the look of the terrain.

[John_Conley]

He's very well respected, so I guess I can't answer.

[John Foley]

Mike,

I've probably played Bristol Harbour more than any other course in the world. I grew up in Canandaigua and live 15 min north in Victor.

Bristol's original routing had the 9's flopped. There also used to be a very small pro shop/resteraunt right next to what is now that 10th tee. I think they reversed the 9's to improve pacce of play as the narrowness of that 9 could cause some slow downs quickly. A few years ago they built the new lodge & resteraunt next to the 1st. The place lost some of it's "feel" when they did that, but w/out it I think it's viability was in trouble.  I can think of no better course w/ spectacular views that is primarly a parkland course.

To me Bristol just feels right. I think that routing and the green sites fit the course so well. There's not a repeated shot on the course and can provide a stiff challange from the back tees. I do think that w/ the whites @ 6100 and the blues at around 6800 something between the two is needed. The greens are smaller and have more than enough bold contours. I love the saddle on the par 4 5th, the tough 12th w/ the narrow front and all the subtle movement on the par 3 15th.

Glad you enjoyed it. I hope to get back there in a few weeks when the leaves they are a-changing.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

It would seem you have been brainwashed not much differently then the methods used on Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.

So what's next, couch-jumping, exclaiming wildly your love for the Jones'?

You are a traiitor. You know what they do to traitors don't you?

[rboyce]

I played the Dunes Club on Friday and enjoyed it very much. It's about as walkable a course as I've ever seen. Another interesting feature is the cart paths on both sides of almost every hole. Despite the ubiquity of cartpaths they are fairly well hidden and our foursome only hit one all day - namely my hooded 4 hybrid off the 13th tee.

It's nearly impossible to lose a ball on the course except in the handful of water hazards. The course would probably fit into many of the classifications of RTJ's work some of which were noted above. Still, it's a course that would be very enjoyable to play over and over. I'll try to post some pics to a new thread later today.

[Mike_Cirba]

Tommy,

I can guarantee that you would have found some things to like quite a bit about Bristol Harbour, including some really wavy, uneven stuff throughout the fairways.   I doubt you would have rolled around much in the bunkers but even the fairway bunkering was pretty thoughtful after the first couple of holes.  

In the light of day, I think what I enjoyed most about it was that the course utilized the land features that were there and didn't seem constructed "atop" it.  Bunkering and other accoutrements were largely kept to a minimum on the back nine holes, such that two of the final 4 holes were BUNKERLESS, content to just use the land movement and a deep gulch.  

It reminded me of some of the early RTJ Sr. courses he built right after his work with Stanley Thompson, including a really cool depression-era course near Syracuse called Green Lake.  

As far as Rees, I'm also rather sure you'd find some things to like in his early work at Montauk Downs, etc., as I have.

In neither case does what i'm saying preclude my ability to be critical of the work both father and son have done to classic courses to "modernize" them for tournament golf, nor does it preclude me calling them on something that comes off as homogenized, "Howard Johnson" style golf.  

But, if I can't play an Olde Kinderhook from Rees and state that it's really superb, or a Bristol Harbour, Montauk Downs from the both of them, or a Dunes from the dad, and instead have to paint all of each of their work with a black or white brush, I'm not really learning anything and I'm certainly not conveying any message of worth here to anyone else.

If you can read anything into my message above, I don't think "traitor" would be in the first 50.  Instead, I think I come across as wondering why their track record wasn't more consistently good, and more relevant to today, why did Rees seemingly veer off what I think were some pretty sound design fundamentals.

[Mike_Cirba]

John Foley,

I had no idea you lived that close.  

I was just through Victor yesterday as we brought Jen's daughter up to school at Canandaigua.  I anticipate being up there again before winter, and I'll drop you a line prior.  

I'm certainly interested in exploring more of Rochester-area golf.  

[Jeff_Brauer]

Mike,

I am with you on Jones, and with you on Tommy's broad brush.  He, and others like him profess to be architecture purists (whatever that is) but really are just as impressed with brand name labels as any teenage girl, and less about education and understanding. At least, that's what I take out of their similarly antagonistic posts.

To answer your question, I think that any popular gca suffers a backlash.  The minimalist movement, and even the Pete Dye style were reactions to a style that had become too dominant and repetitive on the golf landscape simply because Jones was so successful and his courses were on TV so much.  

Perhaps he became a victim of his own famous style, as has Dye and a few other.  When you see so much of one thing, you (or society in general) tends to want to see something different, and to annoint the next big thing.

Make no mistake, the Jones clan has talent, can route courses, etc. as well as anyone, better than most.  I doubt there are many poorly routed Jones courses.  But, he had a style, and it is falling out of favor, along with many of the styles of the other 50-70's gca's, precisely because we have seen too much of it.  We have also seen the problems inherent in it - like the dwarfing feel of the runway tees, the effects on dailey play of a championship design mentality, etc. and feel we need to overcorrect.

The same will happen with any designer and design style to a degree, since no one design style really solves all the problems you need to solve in design, except in perfect marriages of site, goals and designer.

[Mark_Fine]

Mike,
I believe Jones is well respected by many and he did some great designs.  But at the same time he did just crank out golf courses almost in template fashion.  The one course I am working on was designed by Jones Sr. and the master plan committee has no interest in a restoration of his design or even reincorporation of Jones' trademark design features some of which have been mentioned above.  We'll still have done the research to study the course's evolution but I have to say it was nothing really special to begin with.  It sure wasn't unique.  

I've said here before that Jones often designed great tests of golf but not necessarily great golf courses.  
Mark

[T_MacWood]

One of these days someone will write a book on RTJ and put his career in proper perspective. I frankly don't know what to think of him - great designer or designer of cookie cutter courses; great marketer or more image than susbstance; great businessman or quanity over quality - maybe a little bit of everything. Whatever the case you can't deny he was super influential. My impression is his early courses are the more interesting and his later courses not his best....the further he got away from Stanley Thompson maybe.

I like Firestone-North, one his most underrated courses.

[Tom_Doak]

Like Mr. Macdonald, Mr. Jones wrote the book on himself, defying others to follow.  I think a book from an outside perspective would be very interesting, but I suspect that his family would want to have a say, and I wouldn't wish that squabble on any author.

In many respects he was like Dr. MacKenzie, the genius globetrotter, but in one important respect he was different -- Mr. Jones actually came to believe his marketing line that once he had drawn the design, "any good engineer" could build it and have it turn out great.  Dr. MacKenzie was not quite a "people person," either, but he did find great collaborators and insist that they control the construction process.

[Mike_Cirba]

Some pics of Bristol Harbour, taken from their website;
The pic of the par three 15th, which is a very cool hole, is marred by an offensive cart path which I don't recall seeing yesterday somehow.

[George Pazin]

Can't say those photos do a whole lot for me, just looks like another ho hum course. Your description doesn't sound that way, so maybe the photos lie.

I think Tommy was spoofing himself a bit with his post. He has credited Rees in the past for some things, just not a lot.

As for fitting the land, it would seem almost any course old enough could look like it fits the land.

I'll say one thing, if I'm looking to play an RTJ Sr. course, there's others I'd seek first, at least based on the circumstantial evidence.

[John Foley]

George P,

Those pictures do nothing for the course. There is significant elevation change on many of the holes and from these pics you can see a little, but nowhere near what is there.

Tommy,

Take Mike's advice and lay off RTJ and what he did at Bristol. It's definetly got some character. It's not perfect, but it's a wonderfull course.

Rumor has it that Ree's was the on site guy and cut his teeth there!!

Mike C,

Next time your through, drop me a message and we can defiently get out and experince some of Rochester's finest golf offerings.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Thanks George for getting it.

Since I spent half the night and this morning, up until I had to be in LA at 7:00am and spent the half hour driving there, talking to Tom Paul on the phone, I'll forgive myself for not submitting some small emoticon of L. Ron Hubbard or a very gay John Travolta, both dressed in space suits coming out of a volcano to terrorize Mike Cirba and Katie Holmes' parents in the middle of the night.

The humor albeit dry and humorless was unwarranted for a bunch of politcally correct and humorless humbuckers (what kind of thread do you think Jeff Brauer is going to participate on anyway?) (Jeff, for the love of God, please tell eveyone how you really feel.)

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Mike & John,
The course looks nice. Very nice. thanks for the photos and I look forward to a Jeff Brauer course with similar features very soon.

I'm sure it's probably really difficult too.

Thanks tom Doak for REALLY speaking your mind, which I feel is what needed to be said.

[Bob_Huntley]

Tommy,

What rumpled your backside today?

Someone posts some pictures of a course that they like and mentions it has some degree of difficulty and you respond as though someone  had poked you in the eye.

Okay, I know the very letters that spell out the name "Jones" send you into a swoon, but I do remember your affinity to a course that many of us think is less than notable. None of us called you a nut case for so doing.

Love and affection.

Bob

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Bob, I'm joking. It went over everyone's head.

[Mike_Cirba]

George,

Yeah, I was sort of torn about providing the pics because they sort of suck.  Man, after looking at some of Neil Regan's stuff, and some of the other photographers on this site, I'd be ashamed to charge anyone for what they provided.

That being said, George, I did finally post them because I do think they show some neat stuff I saw yesterday.  I'll see if I can't provide some verbal commentary.

The first picture to me, looking back down the fairway, shows a bunker that is sort of ok.   The second pic, of the 5th hole, once again looks back down the fairway but shows the width of the playing avenues on some of the holes.  

The next pic is of the long, downhill, par four tenth, where a well aimed running shot can work out well, but only if it comes from the left where you must flirt with the angle of the dogleg as well as bunkers on the inside corner.

The next pic is the downhill par three 11th, where the green is "framed" (yes, you heard it here folks ) by a cathedral of pines and a backdrop of the finger lake and mountains.  Still, what the pic doesn't show is that the green is probably a mere 5000 square feet, which was very untypical of Jones/Jones to me, for a par three over 200 yards.

The following pic shows the 14th from behind the right side of the green.   The approach shot to the medium length par four drops 90 feet to a green that is angled and benched into a swale.   It's a hole that is delightful to play.

The next pic shows the par 3 15th, about 210 yards to a green perched on the other side of a steep ravine.   The green itself is full of neat contours and as you can see, nobody says you have to "go for it" as there is prepared fairway cut short on the tee side of the hole.

The following pic of the 16th is again from behind the green of the uphill, dogleg right, showing some of the whimsical green shapes that I felt were quite fun as well as unforced on the land.   Yes, in a number of these pics the holes do seem rather narrow, but most do in fact have a good deal of room to work with, as I can attest playing army (left/right) golf all morning.

The final picture is a really horrid one of my favorite hole on the course, the 17th, from behind again but from the right.   This bunkerless hole drops a full 40-50 feet from the tee to a naturally rumpled fairway, only to then rise about 60 feet to the green.   The hole is only 388 yards, but depending on your drive, and how aggressive a line and distance you manage, can play anwhere frorm 340 to 450.   It's an incredibly natural "found" hole that was a real treat.

On the hole, I thought the course was about a Doak Scale "6", which to me was a very pleasant surprise.   It's not perfect, and I could probably list a bunch of things (like 3 downhill par threes) that I found wanting, but overall I enjoyed it much more than I anticipated and I also found many things like the lay of the land architecture, lack of forced carries, generally wide avenues of play, great playability, unusually contoured greens, and a certain element of whimsy and character unique to the property that were very enjoyable surprises.

I think I know a good deal of what you like and I think you'd like it a good deal, George.  

Bob,

Thanks for the support and intervention, but Tommy and I will be meeting with pistols tomorrow at noon at Sandpines.  

Tommy,

I'm bringing Rees...if you bring Bobby Jr. it will be a fair fight.  

[Bob_Huntley]

Tommy,

I know, I was pulling your chain. But in retrospect you do have a penchant for mauling Rees.

He did a great job at MPCC Dunes and took an ordinary Raynor course and made it into something special. When I hear the continuing carping of his work I get a trifle irritated.

Bob

[John Foley]

Here is a linkto the aerial of the course.

http://tinyurl.com/j2bxb

And here is the routing.

http://www.bristolharbour.com/images/course_overview.jpg

I think Mike's got it right w/ being a 6 on the Doak scale.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Having recently played 2 RTJ courses- Wigwam Gold in AZ, restored by Forrest Richardson, and Sugarbush in VT, I can say  both courses were fun to play- for a retro change of pace, that is.

Here are Joe Passov's Top 5 RTJ public access courses:


Spyglass Hill
Mauna Kea Beach
Valderamma
Ballybunion New
Dunes

www.golfonline.com/golfonline/travel/features/article/0,17742,1254731,00.html

[Mark_Fine]

I'd agree with four of those.  Not sure about Ballybunion New??  And by the way, Forrest did a great job with The Wigwam.  More and more people keep telling me this (I presume you enjoyed it).  

[Bill_McBride]

Tommy, if you are going to joke in your voice otherwise reserved for indignant irritation at unfavored golf design, you should include the "wink" emoticon just so everybody will know you are just kidding!  

Your helpful pal,

Panhandle Bill  

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Mark

I certainly enjoyed Wigwam Gold and posted about it here a few times on various threads.

If I lived in AZ, it would certainly be on my rota.

Steve

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